I am finally finished with my chemo (i had colon cancer). I still believe Enbrel had a big part in my cancer. Will be talking to my rheumy dr. this Friday. Anyway, a couple weeks after my last treatment and the lack of steroids, my body crashed! I layed in bed for over 2 weeks. unable to move, unable to walk. My joints were so painful and frozen I thought i would never be mobile again. I couldnt hold a glass to take my meds, let along open the med bottle. I would wake up in the middle of the night and just stare at the ceiling, wishing i could just lift my body a inch so i could move my hip from the pain.
sorry to hear of your troubles... I'm glad you're finished w/ treatement.
Did you take an NSAID for your RA?
Sorry to hear this.I'm so sorry. That sounds really hard. I hope you get some relief soon, and that the cancer is over with.I am very sorry to hear that you have been through so much. I read up on the effects of Enbrel before I started on the injections, the slight chance of a cancer related side effect worried me too but the statistics were so small . It is good to see both sides of the coin and even if the enbrel was not the cause we do have to be made aware of what we are putting into our bodies. Enbrel is not helping me at all so I will be coming off of it.
Ivy -Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, are another category of chemoprevention agents. In addition to commonly used aspirin, they include drugs such as celecoxib (sold under the trade name Celebrex), and sulindac (Clinoril).
Ivy - I join with everyone who has posted - no one who has RA needs to have this happen. And not to have supportive rheumatologists is just one more insult. Keep posting, keep letting us know how you are doing, whether it be bad or good. Huggles ~~ CathyI havent taken NSAID's in a while. Just taking Enbrel and Darvocite for pain the last 5 years. Yes I did report this to the FDA. Wish there had been some kind of feed back but of course there was none. I am trying like hell to eat properly. Couldnt do it while on chemo, I was kind of out of it during the treament, didnt realize it till i was off of it LOL. Ahaa the clarity of thought.OHHHHH and thank you all for your concern. God bless you all !!!RAShirley-My thoughts on the cancer risk.... JMHO.
If there are 3 people in a group of 1000 that take enbrel and who get cancer... what is the percentage versus the percentage of a control group w/ very similar situations/jobs/life styles/etc... I don't feel you can ever get a real idea of what the percent of our chances are .... because you still have to factor in all the other meds we may be taking.. environmental issues.. and the chemo antagonists... etc...
Luckily for many, you've not needed the benefits of a biologic to move... to live..Coauthor Dr Lars Klareskog (Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden) summarized the clinical implications for rheumawire, "Disease activity rather than treatment with DMARDs is the major determinant for lymphoma development in RA. This means that rheumatologists should be very aware of the lymphoma risk in patients with long-standing high disease activity and that we should not be afraid of but instead encourage use of DMARDs to reduce inflammation in these cases."
Baecklund added that these findings reinforce current approaches to RA treatment, including early arthritis clinics, early introduction of aggressive antirheumatic treatment with disease-modifying drugs and corticosteroids, and efforts to achieve remission of RA.
The study also provides important data on the "background" risk of lymphoma in RA patients for use in clinical trials of new RA drugs.
In an accompanying editorial, Drs Cornelia M Weyand, Jorg J Goronzy, and Paul J Kurtin highlight the study finding that oral steroids reduced the risk of lymphoma (OR 0.6) and that intra-articular steroids reduced the risk by about two thirds [2]. They argue for greater efforts to suppress inflammation in RA, writing, "We can simultaneously suppress rheumatoid inflammation and reduce the risk for lymphoma development."
See, this is my problem with this. They keep saying 'nature of the disease' so hypothetically, any problems can be laid squarely on the disease/person and not the meds. I mean, there is absolutely no accountability here.
"Our most important findings were that lymphoma risk is significantly increased only in the subset of RA patients with very severe disease activity and that common [disease-modifying antirheumatic drug] DMARD therapy (antimalarials, auranofin, cyclosporine, D-penicillamine, intramuscular gold, methotrexate, or sulfasalazine) is not associated with increased lymphoma risk in RA patients," Baecklund told rheumawire.
Results: 378 RA subjects with a confirmed diagnosis of lymphoma were identified. The mean duration of RA prior to lymphoma diagnosis was 20 years (range 1 59). Most lymphomas (78%) were B cell non-Hodgkins lymphomas, with the majority classified as diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (48%). EBV positivity was uncommon (12% of all lymphomas) and was found predominantly in cases with Hodgkins lymphoma.
Overall disease activity was associated with lymphoma risk, with both medium and high disease activity associated with an higher risk of lymphoma compared to low overall disease activity (OR 7.7 (95% CI 4.8 12.3) and OR 71.3 (95%CI 24.1 211.4) for medium and high disease activity, respectively, compared to low disease activity). Similar associations with lymphoma risk were found for increasing Steinbrocker functional class. Subjects in the highest quartile of mean ESR (> 45 mm/hr) and those with severe irreversible radiographic joint damage also demonstrated an increased lymphoma risk (OR 2.8 (95%CI 1.8 4.4) for ESR in the highest quartile compared to lowest quartile; OR 10.5 (95%CI 6.1 18.2) for severe radiographic joint damage in hands and feet compared with limited radiographic damage).
For cumulative disease activity, no significant association was found between disease activity and lymphoma until the 7th decile of cumulative disease activity, Thereafter, lymphoma risk rose sharply (OR 9.4 (95% CI 3.1 28.0) for the 9th decile compared to the first; OR 61.6 (95% CI 21.0 181.0) for the 10th decile compared to the first).
Seventy percent of cases and controls had received DMARDs (pre-TNF inhibitor era) mostly consisted of anti-malarial treatment, injected gold, and to a lesser extent azathioprine, methotrexate, and sulfasalazine. In addition, glucocorticoid, NSAID, and aspirin use was common. In analyses adjusted for total DMARDs used, no significant associations between therapeutic use and lymphoma were detected.
Conclusions: RA patients with the highest disease activity are the most at risk for lymphoma, primarily of the diffuse large B-cell subtype. RA therapies, including non-biologic DMARDs, glucocorticoids, NSAIDS, or aspirin do not appear to enhance lymphoma risk above that associated with disease activity. In addition, EBV associated lymphomas are uncommon in RA.
The more aggressive your RA, the more likely you are to use a biologic...........Severe, uncontrolled RA ups the risk of Lymphoma.
But what about what Suzanne said. If they are now saying 'be agressive early' and it's the meds, aren't we going to see a rise in lymphoma rates? Or colon cancer rates? Or whatever the cancer is? It's not like they check for microbes prior to starting us on these meds.